The FBI, The "Private" Sector, the Free Press and the Demise of OWS
Labels: Legal, Media Politics, OWS
“What we need is a critique of visual culture that is alert to the power of images for good and evil and that is capable of discriminating the variety and historical specificity of their uses.” - W.J.T. Mitchell. Picture Theory (1994).
Labels: Legal, Media Politics, OWS
Labels: Legal, NCDBW, philanthropy, violence, women
Labels: Data Graphics, guns, violence
Labels: advertising, gender, handguns, Media Politics, military
Labels: AACM, Music, Obituaries
Labels: environmentalism, Obituaries
. . . it is not clear to me that human beings, with all of their foibles, always understand where defense ends and aggression begins. George Zimmerman, by his own telling, was defending himself. And given the marks on this head, in some sense he was. But I wonder, if he had been unarmed, whether he would have ever gotten out his car. Michael Dunn, who sprayed a teenager's SUV, claims he was defending himself. But I wonder if he ever would have said anything to those kids if he had not been armed. This has particular meaning in the realm of race, where the mere fact of being black means that an uncomfortably large portion of American society is more likely to perceive your everyday actions as aggressive, and thus justify "defense." There seems to be no sense that the very presence of a gun -- like all forms of power -- alters its bearer, that the possession of a tool of lethal violence might change how we interact with the world [. . .]In a sense, Coates is advocating a sort of pre-figurative stance. Act as though the world were the way you hope it can be. And work to bring the world into line with those hopes. This risks being self-deceiving or naive. But it is no less so, I suspect, than the Rambo-esque fantasies of gun fundamentalists in which the gun-toting hero shoots up the bad guys - whether those be rogue law enforcement officials or just plain old criminals.
If I had a gun, there is a good chance I would shoot myself, thus doing the active shooter's work for him (it's usually "him.") But the deeper question is, "If I were confronted with an active shooter, would I wish to have a gun and be trained in its use?" It's funny, but I still don't know that I would. I'm pretty clear that I am going to die one day. That moment will not be of my choosing, and it almost certainly will not be too my liking. But death happens. Life -- and living -- on the other hand are more under my control. And the fact is that I would actually rather die by shooting than live armed.
This is not mere cant. It is not enough to have a gun, anymore than it's enough to have a baby. It's a responsibility. I would have to orient myself to that fact. I'd have to be trained and I would have to, with some regularity, keep up my shooting skills. I would have to think about the weight I carried on my hip and think about how people might respond to me should they happen to notice. I would have to think about the cops and how I would interact with them, should we come into contact. I'd have to think about my own anger issues and remember that I can never be an position where I have a rage black-out. What I am saying is, if I were gun-owner, I would feel it to be really important that I be a responsible gun-owner, just like, when our kids were born, we both felt the need to be responsible parents. The difference is I like "living" as a parent. I accept the responsibility and rewards of parenting. I don't really want the responsibilities and rewards of gun-ownership. I guess I'd rather work on my swimming. And I think, given the concentration of guns in a smaller and smaller number of hands, there's some evidence that society agrees.
Which is not to say those of us who don't own guns don't want to live. We do. But it's not clear that this particular way of living [ a world in which gun owning/carrying has proliferated] will even be effective. [. . .]
In other words, if I have "have a gun" in that situation, other things are then also true of my life. In other words, there is no "me" as I am right now that would have a gun. That "me" would spend a good amount time being responsible for his weapon. It's not so much a situation that, if I were with you and we were facing down a crazy dude, I wouldn't want to have a gun. It's that I've already made choices that guarantee that I couldn't have one. It just isn't possible, given my life choices. I'd much rather work toward a world where the psychotic shooter is actually a psychotic knifer, or a psychotic clubber. [. . .]
I guess my point is, I have a hard time with a construction of violence that begins and ends in the moment of violent confrontation. My belief is that an intelligent self-defense begins long before that dude with the AR-15 in hand appears. If we're down to me licking off shots, then we are truly lost. And I say that as a dude with a huge poster of Malcolm X on his wall."
Labels: economists, Obituaries, political economy
Labels: Rebecca Solnit
* "Here's my top 10 for this year, followed by some choice reissues and historical digs:
1. Wadada Leo Smith — Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform): The trumpeters' four-hour-plus meditation on the U.S. civil rights movement, alternating between meetings with his intuitive group and slabs of abstract chamber music turned out to be the most affecting sonic force of 2012. Let it wash over you and be rewarded with honesty and beauty.
2. Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Supersound): Putting a trio of rock-leaning jazz musicians in the studio with a jazz-influenced pop singer (who suddenly reappeared after what was essentially a 15- year absence) turned out to be an audacious experiment that worked. The most surprising vocal album of the year: Even the remix project that followed this up is full of humor-tinged energy.
3. Vijay Iyer Trio - Accelerando (ACT): The best-reviewed disc of 2012 deserved the distinction. Pianist Iyer redefines the concept of the piano trio by taking in all of the music that surrounds him, regardless of genre, and filtering it through a great tradition.
4. William Parker Orchestra - Essence Of Ellington (Centering): The avant-garde bassist rediscovers the life in Duke Ellington's compositions and brings some of his own to a large group setting as well.
5. Mary Halvorson Quintet - Bending Bridges (Firehouse 12): The most consistently inventive of the newer guitarists in jazz, Halvorson introduces nine twisting new pieces to her repertoire.
6. Tim Berne - Snakeoil (ECM): Those who gathered to hear saxophonist Berne in Denver this fall for a skronkfest with guitarist David Torn may not be familiar with this aspect of his work, which leans toward the meditative and formally structured, but it's just as cerebral, and more accessible.
7. Steve Lehman Trio - Dialect Fluorescent (Pi): An inspired demonstration of alto saxophone pyrotechnics and almost hook-laden compositions add up to a tour de force.
8. Ahmad Jamal - Blue Moon (Jazz Village): One of jazz history's innovators is still thriving, and this piano genius still has much to teach.
9. Ravi Coltrane - Spirit Fiction (Blue Note): Son of John plays the sax (of course) and does more than pay homage to his dad's ecstatic spirit. Kudos to Blue Note for taking up the jazz mantle again.
10. Sam Rivers/Dave Holland/Barry Altschul - Reunion: Live In New York (Pi): In which a '70s titan gets the guys back together for one final, transcendent gig."
Labels: Bangladesh, Shahidul Alam
"I speak as a recovered digital photography addict. I more or less stopped taking photographs at all once I realised I was subscribing to a cheap self-deception about the originality, beauty and meaning of my tens of thousands of pictures. An enthusiasm has frozen into revulsion."That is the animating impulse behind this essay by Jonathan Jones at The Guardian. I admit that I sometimes put photos or stolen images up here or on Facebook. But this is a blog partly about photography. And I rarely actually take photographs. So, I've avoided the pendulum swings Jones has experienced. But I also have not been tempted in the slightest by Instagram or similar photo-sharing sites. And that is the focus of the essay - prompted too by the report that the company planned to "monetize" (to take the euphemism de jour) the content subscribers have been uploading there. Jones, of course, is speaking from the perspective of amateurs. But here is the view from the ranks of professional photographers. Unsurprisingly, it differs; no doubt that is because different people will be using (and have used) this technology for different purposes. Just like photography more generally. It is not about the pile of pictures, online or in a shoebox in the closet. Photography is a technology for amplifying vision and imagination. Jones might find that notion therapeutic if he seeks to overcome his phobia.
Labels: internet, Photography, Technology
Labels: blogs, guns, Speech on Campus, UofR
Labels: Education, Heroes, Heroines, politics, Teachers, Unions
Labels: bi-partisanship, Data Graphics, handguns, libertarians, politics, violence
Labels: handguns, Legal, Media Politics, politics, violence
Labels: AACM, Enthusiasms, jazz, Music, RIJF
"Without criticism, the only measure of value in art is money, and that measure has proven to be both fickle and stultifying. As a subject of inquiry, it’s a bore. I know why investment bankers and hedge fund managers prefer it, but why have artists put up with it for so long?" ~ David Levi StraussI began an earlier post with this same remark from David Levi Strauss. It seems appropriate, after my last post about the market for "art photography." But it also provides a useful segue into this one, which is meant to call attention to this forum at The Brooklyn Rail which has about three dozen critics - apparently because someone named Irving solicited their views - writing briefly about the state of the art, as it were. Here are a few passages from the contributors that seem to me worth thinking about.
"Art’s position vis-à-vis the market is the most important issue for art criticism to address today. Put in Andy Warhol lingo, the question is this: After “the best kind of art” becomes “business art,” what then? How can art possibly re-assume a critical position in the culture after the total commercialization of the avant-garde?" ~ Christian Viveros-FauneA lot of what the contributors say is uninteresting or silly. Some are waaayy too busy dropping names or being self-referential. And none of them, in the end, get it quite right, the way Levi Strauss does in the opening remark. Which is why I recycled it.
"Bullied by conservative commentators, most academics no longer stress the importance of critical thinking for an engaged citizenry, and, dependent on corporate sponsors, most curators no longer promote the critical debate once deemed essential to the public reception of advanced art. Indeed, the sheer out-of-date-ness of criticism in an art world that couldn’t care less seems evident enough." ~ Hal Foster
"THANKS FOR THE INVITATION. I AM A WRITER. I HAVE WRITTEN A LOT ABOUT ART. I NO LONGER DO BECAUSE THE ART WORLD IS TOO STUPID. I DON’T KNOW ANY WORDS THAT ARE SHORT ENOUGH OR LONG ENOUGH. IT’S A DEAD PRACTICE BUT FUN WHILE IT LASTED. WITH AFFECTION," Dave Hickey
"We might want to separate criticism from theory, at least theoretical mumble-jumble, which certainly not all theory is. Criticism should be about good writing, insight, information, and anything else it can shoehorn in that’s pertinent. It should be bracing, not boring, more heterodox, eclectic, more social, more political, more about life, less about the academy."~ Lilly Wei
Labels: Critics, David Levi Strauss, Hickey, Markets
Labels: Bourke-White, Conventions, curators, Evans, Lewis Hine, Markets, Stieglitz
Labels: interviews, Labor, Legal, political economy, politics, Solidarity, Unions
Labels: cello, dissent, Music, Obituaries, Rosptropovich
Labels: Krugman, Marxism, Obama, political economy, Unions
"The claim that waterboarding and other torture techniques were necessary in finding bin Laden was first made earlier this year by Jose Rodriguez, the CIA agent who illegally destroyed the agency's torture tapes, got protected from prosecution by the DOJ, and then profited off this behavior by writing a book. He made the same claim as "Zero Dark Thirty" regarding the role played by torture in finding bin Laden.
That caused two Senators who are steadfast loyalists of the CIA - Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin - to issue statements definitively debunking this assertion. Even the CIA's then-Director, Leon Panetta, made clear that those techniques played no role in finding bin Laden. An FBI agent central to the bin Laden hunt said the same.
What this film does, then, is uncritically present as fact the highly self-serving, and factually false, claims by the CIA that its torture techniques were crucial in finding bin Laden. Put another way, it propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the US government, based on pure falsehoods.
Shouldn't that rather glaring "flaw" preclude gushing admiration for this film? Is it possible to separate the filmmakers' political propaganda and dissemination of falsehoods from their technical skills in producing a well-crafted entertainment product?"
Labels: CIA, Media Politics, New Films, torture
Labels: August, My Boys, narcissism
"A recent study by the International Labor Organization concluded that low-wage work was rare where unionization rates were high. In countries where more than half of workers belong to a union, only 12 percent of jobs pay less than two-thirds of the middle wage, on average.That is just one key observation in this story in The New York Times about incipient attempts to organize workers in low-wage industries in the U.S.; a second key observation is this:
Still, there is little reason to believe that American labor unions can do much to lift the floor on wages in the future. Fewer than 7 percent of workers in the private sector are in a union. We have the largest share of low-paid jobs in the industrial world, amounting to almost one in four full-time workers, according to the International Labor Organization. And our rates of unionization continue to fall."
"Union leaders know they are fighting long odds — hemmed in by legal decisions limiting how they can organize and protest, while trying to organize workers in industries of low skill and high turnover like fast food. But they hope to have come upon a winning strategy, applying some of the tactics that workers used before the Wagner Act created the federal legal right to unionize in 1935.Just so.
“We must go back to the strategies of nonviolent disruption of the 1930s,” suggests Stephen Lerner, a veteran organizer and strategist formerly at the Service Employees International Union, one of the unions behind the fast-food strike. “You can’t successfully organize without large-scale civil disobedience. The law will change when employers say there’s too much disruption. We need another system.”
Labels: Africa, Ghana, Nii Obodai
Labels: communists, Hobsbawm, José Saramago, politics
Labels: anarchism, James Scott, political science, resistance
"This photograph has done something terrible and cruel to Jeffrey Hillman. He has been held up to totally unhelpful, mean-minded scrutiny. What an unhelpful, unenlightening picture this turned out to be. Obviously, some may suspect a more calculating aspect to the whole affair – did the picture really just happen to emerge with its flattering light on the New York police department? But that aside, assuming it really is a chance record of a moment of sudden kindness, its viral career demonstrates the fragility of truth and the stupidity of crowds.So says Jonathan Jones at The Guardian. Jeffrey Hillman, of course, is the shoeless, "homeless" vet who become an emblem for the recent feel good about NYC campaign. I was skeptical of the heartwarming photo op at the time and said so here. Mr. Hillman, as The New York Times reports, turns out to be non-compliant with the heartwarming tale. So much the worse for the tale tellers and for the poor people who will bear the brunt of their disappointment and resentment.
Everyone likes this picture, it goes round the world in seconds, it becomes a cosy heartwarming cult for a day. Then the questions start and the warm glow hardens into a remorseless searchlight on an individual who clearly does not need this massive public attention. Hillman is right to wonder what he is getting from all this, as some other viral image displaces a moment too complex, after all, for the illusory warmth of a picture one shares while sipping an eggnog latte in a warm coffee shop."
Labels: Compassion, homelessness, NYC, police, Political Not Ethical, poverty
Labels: Celebrity, Obituaries, photojournalism
Definition of AUTODIDACT: a self-taught person — au·to·di·dac·tic
Origin of AUTODIDACT: Greek autodidaktos self-taught, from aut- + didaktos taught, from didaskein to teach. First Known Use: 1748.
Mr. Ellsberg, 35, graduated from Brown University and spent years trying to translate his expertise in post-colonial critical theory into a paying career. So his book tries to impart real-world skills, like salesmanship and networking, which he argues are crucial as white-collar jobs are being downsized or shipped to Bangalore. The future, he added, belongs to job creators, even if the only job they create is their own.So, having failed at one intellectual fad, Ellsberg tries to help the subaltern speak in the self-help marketplace?
Labels: Education
Labels: Cornel West, Obama, OWS, political economy, Political Not Ethical, poverty